Off-World Operations
by AlsoSprachOdin
Summary: [Ch1 cleaned up] The conflict between the Justice League and The Light continued. Then a new challenger appears, intent on changing the game permanently, and the League comes under suspicion from both without and within. There will be blood.
1. Out of the Blue

If you should spot any typos or the like, feel free to copy-paste them into the review box.

x ¤ x

_Begone, ye self-insert bishounen and Mary Sues, ye wise-cracking sidekicks and all-powerful new villains!  
- Karkadinn_

X ¤ X

_/The Watchtower_  
_2016, October 12, 19:08 EDT/_

"A-choo!"

"Gesundheit."

Barbara weakly lowered the crook of her arm from her nose. "Thanks, Atom."

* * *

_/Perth_  
_October 6, 23:59 Australian Western Standard Time /_

Rain fell from dark skies, obscuring the city and isolating the small suburban house where the old woman lived. In short, it was a dark a stormy night.

Inside the house were the works: Candles, chalked pentagram on the floor, plenty of black velvet, and of course the grimoire. A particularly old and ugly one of its kind, bound in human skin and written with human blood. The woman, on the other hand, didn't exactly fulfill the stereotype of the cackling old crone: A short, slender old lady with rimless glasses and short grey, dimples amid the wrinkles and a simple gold wedding ring on her hand. For the occasion she'd put on the same black dress she wore to her husbands funeral.

Seeing the seconds tick down to midnight, she read from the book. The words were ancient Sumerian, the content vulgar and the length of the speech took up the entire minute before the antique grandfather clock would strike twelve. But the message was simple: "_Come._"

As the last word was uttered, and the bells rang through the small house, the woman's long unknown but considerable talent for magecraft... unfolded, in the blink of an eye, and by side effect of its actual purpose acted as an excellent lightning rod.

Lightning struck the tiled roof and thunder rattled the windows. Light bulbs around the house sparked and died, the witch's laptop, which she been too preoccupied to think to unplug, made a small noise and fizzled, never to turn on again, and the fuses melted. The living room kept its low candlelight, and the pentagrammed circle was now occupied.

The woman hesitated to speak for a few seconds. She had never summoned an infernal being before, and this one didn't look much like she'd expected. Shorts, T-shirt, bottle of mineral water in hand and breath heavy, except for a few details it looked much like a teenager that had just been running for exercise.

"Are you the jeweled one?" she asked. It looked cross.

Seeming to catch its breath, it sighed. "Guess I am."

That was all that was important. "Then you will serve me, or I will cast you into oblivion, devil."

It gave her a flat look and one raised eyebrow. "With that spell book?" Then it stepped right across the barrier - the magic circle drawn on the floor and infused with magic - which instantly turned black and started smoking. Before the old witch could recover from the shock, the girl-shaped devil took the tome from her hands and swung it hard into the side of her face.

The senior citizen when down like a sack of beans, but managed not to break a hip. "I'm sorry! Forgive me, great one!" she desperately pleaded now that something had clearly gone very, very wrong.

A foot to her solar plexus stopped her from doing much else but curl up. "'Great one?' No one talks like that," the infernal thing said, sounding nothing more than mildly resigned. "And I'm a demon, not a devil."

* * *

_/The Watchtower_  
_October 14, 06:08 EDT/_

"Lex Luthor has been abducted. Just now," Jonn informed the superheroes around him, sitting around the well-spaced opservation room with a spectacular view of earth through the enormous windows. He'd been reading Lindsey Davis when the message showed with a low and melodic "beep". At the wall opposite to Earth, in the middle of a row of large holo-screens showing various international news channels, one constantly updating holo-screen displayed simple rows of written alerts. And flashing at the top, having just displaced the storm warning for the South China/West Philippine Sea:

"_12.06: Lex Luthor abducted from LexCorp Tower, perpetrators unknown._"

Silence reigned. For five seconds.

"Is Superman there?" Hawkwoman asked.

"He's in Egypt," Hal Jordan answered.

Jonn had busied himself and got a satellite picture through from the League's network: The screen on the right from the alert list now showed a silvery spire jutting up above the early morning Metropolis skyline, the L-shaped roof immediately recognizable, and three-quarters up a single blemish in the otherwise perfect facade. A zoom-in on what looked like a luxurious bedroom revealed a warped but unbroken window behind the king sized bed, apparently pushed out of its frame and deposited safely inside rather than tossed to the hapless commuters below.

"Someone just flew into his room, picked him up and left?" Hal considered. Then he levitated out of his chair, put a glowing green lid on his mug of coffee and flew into the Zeta tube at the left end of the room. His voice rang out from the speakers in the ceiling: "_I'll see if I can pick up any air traffic, people-sized._"

In the meantime, the Martian had rewinded the footage: And right enough, a figure in some kind of full body suit and a motorcycle helmet did just as Hal guessed before taking of in a south-south-western direction, at a speed that would quickly give the pajamaed man in its hands a bad case of hypothermia. Jonn relayed as much to the Green Lantern.

Red Arrow rose from his seat, going the Zetas. "I'll be on the crime scene."

"I'll watch your back," Shayera added, following.

Jonn considered waking several more superheroes to look for Luthor, but it seemed wrong to go all out to help one of their enemies. He instead called Doctor Fate, who never slept anyway, to stand by in Metropolis for back-up.

* * *

_/Metropolis, Lexcorp Tower_  
_October 14, 06:37 EDT/_

When Red Arrow arrived at the front entrance to the skyscraper, Shayera had already been to the airspace just outside Luthor's bedroom and taken a dozen snapshots. She was waiting for him at the large sliding glass doors and as expected, the Leaguers were held back in the lobby. The pretty receptionists and imposing, black-suited men were all very polite about it, but also possessed the kind of stubborness the prospect of losing your job tends to inspire.

MCPD officers arrived a few minutes after Arrow and Hawkwoman to ask if the alert they'd received as per standard procedure from the League was correct in reporting a citizen abducted. At that point the security personnel had to call their superiors upstairs, who sounded like Mercy Graves and told them to keep their mouths firmly shut, allow no one anywhere near the 56th floor, and to contact the emergency legal team regarding the authorities. Roy heard all this by tapping his earpiece into the local frequency.

So he called the League's own 24/7 lawyers to fence around with Luthor's, which lasted for about two minutes before it was firmly established that the suits were legally obligated to inform that a crime had probably been commited, and yes, there was a distinct possibility that a superpowered individual might have been involved, which meant that the case went federal. Of course, it was going to anyway, considering that the Secretary General of the UN was the abductee.

Forensics were called in, Hal Jordan had long since given up trying to spot anyone who shouldn't be in the Metropolis airspace, and the vultures descended with rolling cameras and no clues. The steadily growing throng of journalists were shown to the door by security (who graciously allowed the Leaguers to continue waiting inside), and half an hour later agent Walker and agent Pilgrim arrived to officially take over the investigation. Arrow and Hawkwoman still weren't allowed topside, but with the bug placed discretely in one of Agent Pilgrim's pockets, that would be alright.

A League-employed technician was quickly dispatched to a neighboring roof-top, small parabolic antennas set up to receive and transmit, and from 55 floors above, Miss Graves voice soon spoke through Red Arrow's earpiece.

What the ominously named cyborg assistant could tell agents Walker and Pilgrim wasn't much more than the League could have surmised with what little they already had: Several alarms had been tripped early in the morning, and before Graves or any other of Mr. Luthor's bodyguards could reach him, the tycoon was gone without a trace.

The technicians reported no signs of blood, minimal (effective) resistance from the victim, and that the armored glass had been pushed in, by hand, in one go. No fingerprints. Superman was mentioned, and rejected by virtue of his alibi in north-eastern Africa. That still left a few more known superhumans with the capability of pulling this off, and an uncomfortable percentage of those were League.

Arrow recorded everything, still sitting in one of the lobby's sofas in the waiting area to the side, reading the Time magazine that had been lying on the minimalistic coffee table and squeezing a gripmaster. The early birds going by on their way to work paid the winged woman at his side a few more stares. One or two even looked about to pick up the long, golden-brown feather she had shed, lying on the blue-grey carpet by her feet, but so far none had worked up the courage. One of the receptionists would likely be able to sell it for a few thousand bucks later.

Walker, Pilgrim and the techies (carrying the bent and cracked window) stopped by on the way out to inform that the bureau wouldn't require any assistance with this investigation beyond maybe answering a few questions later, Roy fished back his miniature toy, and Shayera ordered jasmine tea: The two of them would stick around for a bit longer and see if management decided to talk to them anyway. It wouldn't do to walk out now like they'd already got what they came for.

Two solid hours after the apparent abduction, the Light had apparently still not managed to return one of their own, and the two superheroes were about to leave when a uniformed woman with strangely heavy footsteps approached them.

"Come with me," was all Miss Graves said before she turned right back around toward the elevators. Red Arrow and Hawkwoman followed.

The elevator ride was silent, but not so awkward as one might have expected. Listening devices were likely installed here by any number of parties. Mercy stood straight and expressionless at the back of the spacious enclosure, Red Arrow leaning against the wall to her right and the winged woman taking up the left with arms crossed. Enemies so close to each other and so far from able to unleash the violence. In mere seconds a small bell chimed, the doors opened and the three of them stepped out into a hallway, down the hallway and through another door which Mercy locked behind them.

It looked much like any normal conference room: A single oval table with ten simple chairs, a large whiteboard and the outer wall made of one-way glass, providing an impressive panorama of Metropolis . As if by magic, or more likely in-built remote controls, the windows went black, the lights dimmed and the projector on the ceiling lit up the whiteboard with the view of a standard Windows desktop. While mercy remained standing, her guests took an uninvited seat and watched the screen accessing an external harddrive and open a video file seemingly by itself.

Roy was only slightly creeped out by Luthor apparently taping himself sleeping, but the ostensibly hidden camera did get a good look at the kidnapper as she did her thing. It seemed like a 'she' to him, despite her build being mostly hidden under full, grey-and-blue biker leathers and her face behind a black-visored helmet. She came in, yanked Luthor out of bed while he fired several shots into her center mass, slapped the hand-laser out of his hand, took him under one arm and flew out again.

Strength and flight were some of the most common powers out there, but of the metahumans they knew existed, the female appearance narrowed the suspect list down to four, and they were all League: The Wonders and the Martians.

"Your boss' buddies not helping out?" Shayera inquired. Mercy had withheld this crucial bit from the FBI, so she or the Light must have decided it was too valuable to show to just anybody. But now she was. Roy supposed this was all an overly elaborate ploy, or Mercy was getting desperate. A lot of things could happen to an abductee in two hours.

The cyborg shook her head slowly. "This is all I know."

And that seemed to be that. With a copy of the video file in one flash-drive, the two superheroes left the enemy's castle.

* * *

_/The Watchtower_  
_October 14, 15:03 EDT/_

"J'onn was in Tongli, watering his flowers; Diana was in Themyscira, her mother and several amazons attesting to that; M'gann and Casandra were still sleeping, alone, and neither of them tape themselves," Batman summarized. "After examining the footage, however, we can also say with certainty that the perpetrator is at least five centimeters shorter than Wonder Woman."

The woman herself didn't look too impressed. "We don't need alibis. There is nothing linking us to this crime besides our powers, and any number of unknowns out there could have those."

With the expanded roster of the Justice League, not everyone could be fitted around the Big Table, as it was called. And with the Team moved to the super-atmospheric HQ, it had grown too big as an organization for everyone to be informally included as equals. It simply wasn't practical. Instead, a chain of command had been implemented, and only the highest ranking leadership was seated in this particular, low-orbit conference room.

"Nobody likes internal investigation, but it has to be done," Black Canary, current leader of the Justice League, insisted.

"Do we have any actual leads?" Flash asked. "Useful ones, that we can follow up on?"

"No," Batman answered. "The perpetrator left no fingerprints or DNA, the leathers and helmet could have been bought in a number of shops, in half of the countries around the world, or ordered over the internet. They flew at approximately 120 kilometers per hour, and had disappeared completely before we got the call. No one has reported seeing them or Luthor, and no ransom demands have been made so far."

"She came, she took and she left," Flash mumbled dryly under his breath.

"What about enemies?" Captain Atom suggested. "He must have had plenty of those, besides us."

"We're looking into that angle, and have convinced the FBI to share with us," Canary said. "We're still waiting to hear back from Batgirl, but no news so far." And no news were no results.

None of the assembled superheroes said anything for a bit, but the elephant was very much there with them, breathing down their necks. Hawkwoman were the one to say it: "This is all very interesting, but is it our problem?"

"It's a crime, committed by a metahuman," Superman countered. "That means we have to bring the perpetrator to the authorities."

No one contradicted that. End of discussion.

"Is there anything we can do that we aren't already doing?" John Stewart asked.

No one put any ideas on the table.

"We keep our eyes and ears open, and we carry on. Meeting ad-"

The sound of running footsteps interrupted Dinah, followed by a hard, fast knocking on the large steel door at the end of the room. Heads turned and saw the door opening at Canary's "come in", and Aqualad quickly stepped inside, saying: "Computer, display orbital camera number 14-A," with no explanation to his superiors. But they didn't stop him, seeing the urgent look in his eyes, instead looking to the hologram-projected screens now emerging above the table.

Camera A on satellite 14 was supposed to monitor Infinity Island, HQ of the League of Shadows. There was nothing on screen but ocean, swirling and frothing, under a thick cloud of dust which slowly drifted away in the ocean wind.

"What the..." Flash muttered.

"Hera," breathed Wonder Woman.

"Computer," Aqualad spoke again. "Rewind two minutes."

Infinity island appeared, exactly as the last time the people in the meeting hall had seen it, lonely and fortified in the ocean. It remained so, for 17 tense seconds. Then it exploded. One moment it was an island, and the next, with no flash of flame, a grey cloud obscured it completely. The cloud then seemed to grow and deform in a single split second, and then once more, but less so.

"Shift to 14-C," J'onn commanded, and the screens switched to a view that wasn't mostly taken up by the island, but would also monitor the waters around it for a kilometer in each direction. With the 45-degree angle, the mushroom cloud was clear to see where Infinity Island had been mere minutes ago.

There was shock, and then a single name: "Queen Bee."

A flurry of activity broke out. Wonder Woman stood abruptly. "Shayera."

"Right behind you."

"Zatanna, how fast can you get to the Watchtower's hangar?"

"J'onn, get QB on the line."

"Kaldur, put every available spy-sat on Al-Qawiyah! All of it, but especially the palace!"

"Just get there, out. Arthur, we need to search that crater for anything. Miss Martian, get to the Watchtower hangar, now, out."


	2. Second Barrage

_Veni, vidi, vici  
- Gaius Augustus Caesar_

X ¤ X

_/Al-Qawiyah, in front of the Royal Palace_  
_October 15, 00:44 Bialya Standard Time (UTC+03:30)/_

"Yes, we were too late," Wonder Woman spoke quietly into her compact little black phone, and cast a disdainful glance at the floodlights, numerous wary eyes, and the many, many gun barrels aimed at her and the bio-ship behind her. "Miss Martian felt around for her for twenty minutes, scanned the entire palace grounds, and I gave her the green light to probe the General I just spoke to." An older gentleman who told her in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome, but hadn't had the balls to actually fire on them, and his brain itself had been forthcoming enough. "Queen Bee apparently went to a bunker beneath the palace right around the time of the attack." And the League now had a complete list of the Bialyan army's resources.

The brightly lit plaza was mostly empty, ringed with various sorts of armored vehicles, and the city beyond that metal ring was dark and remarkably silent. Diana's breath fogged in the chill air.

"She then informed her ministers that she would leave for a few days, and she hasn't been heard from since. Our guess over here is she boom tubed out to WaWo."

"Okay. Thanks for trying anyway," Bruce said from the other end of the connection, going through the bio-ship and directly into space. "Are you seeing anything suspicious?"

"Nothing beyond the usual for this place. Have you found out anything new up there?"

"We have a good idea what happened: Tungsten rods."

"Sounds familiar. Go on."

"There was no radiation detected in the winds or currents going from Infinity Islands past location, and after eliminating some impossibilities, we've agreed that orbital bombardment is the most likely option."

"Ah yes," She remembered now. It had such a catchy nickname after all: "Rods from the Gods." Like Zeus' own lightning bolts. "I didn't know anyone had put such satellites in orbit."

"No one has."

The pieces almost fell into place by themselves. "What are the chances that she can fly that high, and that fast?"

"We've designated 'her' as codename Hell's Angel, for now, and whoever dropped that tungsten as codename Starfall."

Diana smiled. "I'm surprised you went along with those."

"The alternative was Candle Snuffer. Sometimes I worry about Robin." It took some listening, but she could hear the tiny smile in his voice, even if he was wearing his typical poker face up there, far above the planet. They'd see which supervillain name stuck, in the end. "And as for chances, anything's possible."

"But for someone with that kind of power, who's known where and how to execute these attacks, to never have registered on our radar?" Diana found the scenario unlikely.

"Could be a metahuman working for another party, rival organisations, governments. It could be many things... Excuse me, something's happening." The line went dead.

* * *

_/The Watchtower, _  
_October 14, 17:15 EDT/_

There was a flash preceding the emergence of a gateway of light with impossible depths within, and two seconds after it had opened, every man, woman and robot in the observation room had taken cover behind thoughtfully blast proof furniture and particularly sturdy colleagues. The alarm activated by itself when the Watchtower's sensors detected the space-anomaly. And from the other side of the boom tube shot a small rectangular item, which Red Tornado registered before it had finished its trajectory as a Father Box, with a note tied onto it with small pink bow.

Then Green Arrow shot it out of the air with an explosive arrow.

Father Boxes, being as expensive as they were, however, had been designed to survive a few knocks. The explosion merely sent the Father Box sailing back into the closing boom tube, and both disappeared without a trace.

With the danger apparently averted, everyone relaxed, except for Red Tornado who didn't have nerves. "I think that might have been a mistake," the AI said.

"It's what we're supposed to do, standard procedure for unindentified objects delivered by boom tube," Green Arrow defended, paraphrasing the Justice League Handbook on Tactics, Press and Legal Powers. Said book did indeed advice returning suspicious or unidentified object delivered by unannounced boom tube back into the portal, though Oliver had been trying to destroy the object and simply got lucky.

Meanwhile, in the conference room two floors above, Black Canary was still covering on the floor behind her chair, holding her breath, while Superman double-checked an identical Father Box lying on the big table, amid scattered papers, laptops and various beverages. "No explosives or toxins that I can detect," her second-in-command declared. That or course was no guarantee of security, Father Boxes being powerful teleportative devices that they were; The thing could be programmed to open a hole into deep space at any time, so Dinah stood up and wisely gathered her stuff.

"I'll be in my office. Get a drone to move that thing outside." She put a finger to the small headset wrapped around her left ear. "The is Black Canary to everyone in the Watchtower. Sweep the tower for breaches, every level and each toilet pipe. This is not a drill."

Batman was coming the other way as she walked through along the third-floor corridor, blithely ignoring her orders. "What happened?"

"A boom tube just spat out a Father Box while Kal and I were catching up on paperwork," Dinah replied, still broadcasting across the Watchtower frequency.

"There was one in the observation room too, but G. Arrow sent it back," reported Black Lightning over the channel. Batman was now walking besides Dinah to her office.

"The Light must have sent them. Something has happened again," the detective deduced.

"Father Box One is out," followed Superman's voice. "There's a note on it. I can read it from here."

She'd reached her office. "Open sesam," Canary said to the solid metal door while a laser scanned her in the eye from the side. It still worried Canary about her eyesight, but it meant that she didn't have to unload her stuff on Batman or have him open the door for her. Unfortunately. The room inside looked much like any typical office, if in the high-ranking end with its comfortable size, black leather furnishings, neo-steel and voice-activated filling cabinets. Outside the broad windows, a solitary bomb-disposal drone floated by, away from the Watchtower with the Father Box clutched in one claw-like hand. The coffee, tablet, papers and stationary was quickly arranged on her desk with the same orderly neatness that characterized the rest of the office, and with pen on hand she put the other one to the ear-set. "Okay, Kal, go ahead."

The unlocked door opened and Superman stepped inside, looking past the other two into space. "`This is a prepared statement, written on the 14th of October, at 11:34 Coordinated Universal Time,´" he started, speaking calmly and detachedly, divorcing himself from the author of the letter. "`- which will be automatically delivered to the center of operations of the Justice League in the contingency of my disconnection from the Warworld. If you are reading this, I am most likely dead.

"`This morning, Luthor was removed from his residence by an individual we have still yet to identify. Naturally, we had prepared several responses for such eventualities. We did not expect the target to exit this dimension, but we had a planned for such emergencies´."

Dinah lifted a single, blonde eyebrow. Interdimensional and super-atmospheric capabilities, plus the ability to use them effectively; it added up to a planetary scale threat. Batman seemed very absorbed with his wrist-mounted holo-computer, scrolling rapidly through lists of names and locations.

"`Twenty-one seconds after exit, Luthor's signal disappeared at 41°21'51.73" north, 72°08'22.86" west, 23,1 meters above sea level: a currently vacant appartment. Closer inspection revealed the after-effects of a brief interdimensional anomaly. The response team on the site was shortly thereafter joined by Clarion for interdimensional pursuit.´"

Dinah had to try, even if she was pretty sure it wouldn't fly. "Can Doctor Fate trace this?"

"Not after eleven hours," said Batman.

Superman continued. "`Five minutes and fifty-five seconds after exit, the response team stepped into another universe. They have yet to return, and with no claims of responsibility made, are assumed dead. L-7, Clarion; operative, Deathstroke; operative Tommy Terror, operative, Tuppence Terror; operative, Killer Cold, as well as L-3, Lex Luthor.

"`If my predictions of more attacks to come is correct, and if such attacks are as succesful as this one, I shall have to congratulate this enemy. Which I estimate a sixty-five percent chance of being you. Well done, my noble enemy, I am glad to have been part of facilitating a stronger Justice League. I leave you these Father Boxes, along with the coordinates to your price and inheritance, the Warworld. No other person or organisation do I trust with this weapon. Use it prudently, and make Earth strong.

"`In the event that our attacker is not you, I urge you to learn from them.

"`Only power can negotiate.

"`With the best of wishes, The Brain.´"

At least he wasn't a hypocrite, Canary thought to herself. Or rather, 'hadn't been', if rumors of his demise really were true.

Batman opened his mouth to speak, but Superman lifted a hand, signalling that the letter wasn't done yet: "`PS: 15:14 UTC. Orbital bombardment. How spectacular. And uncharacteristically direct. You've always tried to be elegant in your modus operandi, infiltrating and trapping. I am revising my earlier estimate to fifty percent chance. How I wish I could speak to you without compromising our position.´"

As Superman finished speaking, and didn't look like there was any more left, Batman said harshly: "From what we've known, and now this letter, it's likely that Brain was on the Warworld. If he is dead, then so are Savage and Bee. All of the Light might be dead."

"Probably," Dinah amended, going by her own gut feeling. Screw `woman's intuition´. "Maybe. It's too convenient. Has everyone been accounted for?"

"No," replied Batman. "Every single member of the League and the Team have been on Earth or in the Watchtower since this morning. Except Atom. I can't find him." With the redundant tracking systems, including the freaking buddy system, that Batman had included in this temporary self-surveilance, the only way anyone in the League or Team could have been behind this as far as Dinah knew... She carefully did not look at anyone as she considered her options.

Well, if she couldn't safely check with Superman standing right there, she guessed her efforts didn't really matter. So Dinah opened one of her table drawers, found a single, old-fashioned cellphone and pressed a speed-dial.

She didn't put the phone to her ear, and nothing seemed to happen for the first few seconds. Then Atom seemingly jumped out of thin air, from Batman's direction. Landing on his feet, Atom carefully did not look at the man standing behind him. "He's clean."

"Hm," was all Batman added to that, not seeming to mind having been invaded by the microscopic man. If anything, the chairwoman of the League would guess that he approved.

"Alright, this wasn't us. The Light may or may not be dead, and we may or may not have the Warworld now, depending on whether or not this is all an elaborate ruse on their part." Eyes turned to the window behind her, where the tracked little remote-controlled robots was still slowly sailing away. Dinah steepled her hands under her chin, elbows on table. "Flash notified me earlier that he'd identified one of the bits Arthur located as a positive DNA match for Ghul."

No one said anything. It was far from conclusive evidence. And that they had that much was only possible thanks to Flash's super speed: It took long enough just to profile a singe DNA-sample. The speedster had gone through hundreds in the past one-and-a-half hours.

"And the Lazarus Pit?" asked Atom. Last they heard, neither Aquaman or his sharks could detect any leak of the Pits' strange liquid into the water. Which was strange, because such an explosion should hardly have collapsed the pit so perfectly.

"He still hasn't called me." And no news were no results. The investigative team of Atlantean detectives, archeologists and chemists were still working diligently at Infinity Island's remains, no doubt.

Dinah closed her eyes. If there was any chance that this was all real, then Earth couldn't afford to let the Warworld into the wrong hands. Which meant pretty much anyone. She was tempted to ask Batman how sure he was about The Light's deaths, again, but managed to stop herself. "We have to know with 100 percent certainty. We'll send the drone to scout through the boom tube, see if Brain was telling the truth. Atom, call everyone available back to base. Batman, put another round of coffee over. And Superman, guard the Father Box. I'll contact the press team." Hopefully those guys could put together something to avert the approaching shitstorm and suspicions, not to mention the political ramifications if the League had indeed been given the keys to the armed moon.

The men - her men? - nodded and left the office. Except Superman. He stood a little to the side, looking out at space. His face had taken a harder aspect when the others left.

"What is it," Dinah asked against her better judgment. She had a bad feeling about this.

"The Brain's letter out there is laser printed. My guess is that he was dictating to a computer somewhere, and had it set to print if he disconnected." Superman switched over to that detached reading tone: "`PPS: 17:13 UTC. Merde. Beast Bo.´"

* * *

_/Murzuq Desert, _  
_October 14, 19:29 EDT, October 15, 00:29 Local Time/_

Green Lantern, Hal, had moved the drone and Box down here, into a shallow bowl between dunes that overtook the horizon all around like flowing hills. The stars hung thick in the sky, undiluted by human civilization's own light, and the moon cast its twilight down on a lonesome, short robotic figure, simply connected by two hundred meters of rolled-up cable to a antennae-adorned relay stationed.

Several kilometers further south, a table had been set up, with all the monitors, boxes, wires and more antennas necessary to operate the robot from this distance and observe the results from five different directions and distances. Several people huddled together warmth and a view of the flat panel screens, the most interesting currently being the drone's own first person view of the Father Box, resting in the multi-digited appendage Red Tornado had attached ten minutes ago.

"This is team Delta, in position," sounded Icon's voice across the com-channel set up here just for tonight.

Canary took a moment to run over her mental checklist. Every precaution seemed in place, from the back-up teams in the Watchtower, monitoring from there, to the Libyian prime minister's signed and classified permission for `hazardous testing´. The area had been checked for stray desert wanderers (finding nothing but lizards) and was uninhabited for miles and miles around. Everything seemed in order. "Attention, everyone. Be ready for anything. Operation Toothpaste is go."

She tried to keep the names of secret operations bland. It helped that the secrecy meant she wouldn't have to mention the name in any condolence letters.

"Activation of the Father Box in 10... 9... 8..." Green Lantern, John, started counting, sitting with controller in hand right before the drone's multiple camera feeds. Behind him, Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Zatanna, Doctor Fate and Flash waited, all but the Lord of Order wearing winter jackets.

"3... 2... 1... Activated."

The boom tube exploded into existence before the drone's frontal camera. And stayed there. For five seconds.

Ten seconds.

Nothing happened.

"Deactivating in 5... 4..."

The boom tube disappeared into itself again without complication.

"Now scanning," declared John, activating the drone's multiple sensor arrays.

"Scan one," relayed Canary across the channel. The Magicians behind her went to work with their spells and crystal ball. One by one, they, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Beast Boy and Blue Beetle each checked back, reporting nothing suspicious. It was a slow and tedious affair, and Canary found herself discretely looking over the superheroes around her.

She knew Oliver, standing at her right. He would have talked to her if he was going to join a conspiracy to kill the Light. But besides him? John, Katar, Nabu, Zatanna, Barry... who could she trust, if she couldn't trust Batman?

Certainly not the rest of the Bat Clan. Atom. The Martians and the Wonders - Wonder Woman had always been a warrior princess, even if she was too tall to be 'Hell's Angel'. Even not-so-little-anymore Billy had been close to crossing the bloody line when Black Adam facilitated his first transformation. And Beast Boy. Even for revenge on Bee, Canary had trouble imagining that one. He was just not the type.

What she was left with counted Superman, Green Arrow, and Static, if only because the last one was still so new to the League that no conspirators could know him well enough to trust him themselves.

In the frontal drone camera feed, and on every satellite feed, the boom tube bloomed back into existence, and with a giant green hand from Hal, the treaded drone was deposited inside the dizzying, rotating tunnel and began to drive forward on John's command.

In the distance, a darkness appeared at the end of the glowing tunnel, slowly coming closer. As the drone arrived at it, falling out of the tunnel and landing hard on the floor, then righting itself with its arms, the light from the Tube's exit end illuminated enough of the floor that Hawkman could confidently confirm: "It looks like the warworld."

The drone's own equipped lights turned on, and revealed a big, circular metallic room occupied by house-sized, orange-glowing, alien machinery. And in the center of it, suspended in a short pillar of yellow light, a twisted crystaline shard they had all seen before.

"The key chamber."

"Can we grab the key from here?" asked Canary.

Hal Jordan could. With a long green arm, a few directions from John, and a hundred meters between him and the boom tube, the Green Lantern reached through the hole in space, grabbed the crystal hardware and deposited it in another big bowl of sand for a sextuple safety check. Which it passed, even being positively identified as the real deal.

"Could the Light have made a copy?" asked Green Arrow.

Who knew? If they had, they would have changed the `keyhole´ so the League couldn't use this otherwise incredibly valuable item against them. Or it could be Brain's attempted proof of veracity. There were too many possibilities, and they were taking too much time. Canary decided she was done pussyfooting around.

"Katar, fly me over, I'm going in," she said, stepping toward Hawkman. "If I don't come back, I'm turning the chairmanship-"

"-leadership-" corrected Wonder Woman in Dinah's ear.

"- over to Superman."

"Uh, Canary, Superman's not an option. He just went in," informed Hal from his place in the sky.

She stopped short. Fuck.

Well, he did have a better chance of getting back alive if this was trap. But he would also a much greater loss. And it was her responsibility as leader, dammit. Dinah resignedly turned back to the monitors, the interior of the key chamber, and the swirling vortex of golden light below the dunes.

At least she could trust Kal. Probably.

He came back out, after only eighteen tense minutes. "It's the warworld," he confirmed over the radio. "And they're dead."


	3. Evil Beware

_I perform autopsies for a living, I've pretty much seen a few thousand causes of death, and after working for about seven years I still wish someone would die by drowning in formaldehyde._  
_God fucking damnit that fucking stench._  
_- 4chan anon_

* * *

_/The Warworld_  
_October 14, 20:26 EDT/_

Brain was smashed across the wall, scattered in a few bloody bit among the pieces of his robotic carriage. Savage was in even worse shape.

"I guess he wasn't that immortal," Green Arrow said, cringing slightly at the carnage. It was only the remains of his usual coat and the DNA match that even indicated that this had once been Vandal Savage. Only Queen Bee was in any condition to be buried in an open casket.

She was still in her chair, thanks to the arm-rests. Some of her guts had spilled onto the oval stone table, as if her stomach had exploded. Which was a possibility.

"Tell me you have some idea what did this," Canary ordered, expecting very little.

So Batman didn't disappoint when that's what he gave her. "It wasn't Angel. This thing walked, barefoot." Both Superman and Batman could somehow detect the prints, despite the oxygen-bleach sprayed across the whole floor. "It big. Vandal's ribcage indicates claw marks, further apart than a human hand could stretch. It's also a mammal, and doesn't look like anything I know of. The footprints seem both vaguely canine and feline, and they don't leave the room."

The bleach left the League with no DNA of the perpetrator's to work with. But at least it didn't add the usual fumes to the odor of entrails, and the content of those entrails. Captain Atom had helpfully turned the ventilation to maximum, making a chilly breeze blow through the room and out of the only door. It didn't help much.

"So what happened to Queen Bee?" Green Arrow asked. Canary looked to the slumping body, which was remarkably free of marks, besides the obvious. "Chestburster?"

Batman didn't even hesitate. "It could have been a shape-shifter. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was Beast Boy." He just said it, like guessing at the ratio of vinegar to wine in a marinade.

Canary didn't know how to react. Should she act surprised? But really, she should have expected this, as it would fit with the behavior of an innocent Batman. She just tried to play along. "Do you honestly think Garfield could have done something like this?"

"No," Batman answered immediately. "The sort of power necessary to rip through so much bone in one swipe, the way this thing did with Vandal's torso, necessitates greater than natural strength and speed. Also, Garfield doesn't have this kind of rage." That was another thing to consider, Canary noted to herself. Oh, wouldn't the team simply love more psych evaluations...

"So, another superstrong. Another name to come up with," groused Arrow. "And what do you get out of the... that?" He gestured at the far end of the table.

A circle, drawn with blood, filled in with a five-pointed star. Various strange, equally coagulated symbols were dotted outside the circle at each point of the star. One looked like a stickman with one too many pairs of arms.

Batman shrugged. "Bad joke."

"Is that really what you'd expect from the kind of people who's managed to kill Vandal Savage?" Canary pressed the Dark Knight. If he were really behind this, she would at least like to know what the hell the point was with something that looked a lot like a bad joke to her as well.

"A pentagram drawn with blood is nothing besides a pop-cultural idea of how you're supposed to summon demons, or the like. You can, but usually it's done _before_ your enemies are killed." That was interesting to hear. From Batman. One could almost get the impression he had a lot of experience summoning hellspawn.

Canary fingered her earset. "Black Canary to Doctor Fate, report to sub-level 417, area 253, EK-12, room 3." The Warworld was humongous, as only a fully hollow planetoid could be, and who knew what the Light had left behind of surprises. Most of the League and Team were currently just scouting through the nearest quarters for threats. And what a joy taking over this place was going to be. So far, several hundred of the Light's servants, workers and soldiers had been apprehended and were being escorted out into the Sahara for further processing. Someone else could take care of that paperwork. Flash would resent it, but was always the most effective at it. She'd make it up to him later.

Pulling herself back to ironically simpler tasks, Canary tried to summarize the course of events. "The Chestburster, if that really is what happened here, was implanted in Bee before the first attacks. The killers were just waiting, and abducting Luthor, bombarding Ghul, was a way of pressing the Light to hold an emergency meeting, so the Chestburster could get them all in the same room."

"That's what it looks like," agreed Arrow. Batman nodded-

"But how did the Chestburster get away from here? If the footprints never leave the room, did it change shape?" Canary asked.

"If it was a shape-shifter, they could sit on the table and put on some shoes. That way we wouldn't see any smaller, barefoot prints," Arrow suggested.

"But all the footwear here is accounted for," countered Batman. Queen Bee was indeed still in her multiple thousand dollar high heels. And Vandal's feet were still in their boots, one in each end of the room.

Doctor Fate stepped around the furthest one as he entered through the door, and two steps inside the room he froze, the eyes behind his domed helmet locking onto the pentagram. Apparently it wasn't just a joke.

"Fate-" Canary started, and was interrupted.

"Hellspawn was here," the Lord of Order declared, speaking softly.

"Wait, so this drawing is actually how you summon monsters?" Green Arrow asked.

Fate looked at Arrow, then the Pentagram again, and Canary got the feeling he only now really saw it. "No, _that_ is merely some creative soul's idea of humor," he dismissed. "But they did perform a summoning. Something demonic was here, shortly. There was a portal, I can still sense the echo of it." His arms snapped out toward the pentagram, and a golden light filled the space above it. "It has been too long, and the portal was open only for maybe a minute, but I can preserve the echo and enhance it. It is work that needs a undisturbed mind and time, but we can follow the demon, and the perpetrator, to their destination."

Good news at last, and two-fold at that. Canary could feel her lips tugging into a smile. She didn't know of any demonic creatures anyone in the league associated with on anything near a cooperative level. Then again, Doctor Fate could be lying. The smile fell away. She'd have to get Zatanna to corroborate this demonic presence. For now she would have to assume Doctor Fate was part of a possible conspiracy.

"Wait," Arrow held up a palm, "are you saying that the Chestburster, the killer here, summoned a demon from wherever they are summoned from, and then went back there with them?"

"Yes."

"I think what Green Arrow is trying to ask," Batman broke in, "is whether an Earth metahuman could survive going there. Or if it's a good idea for us to open a way to that kind of dimension."

"The demonic presence need not have been summoned from an infernal place."

"So the portal didn't go into another dimension?"

"It is too soon to tell. You will be informed when it can be seen. Be done here, and I shall set to work."

"Right, let's get to work." Canary put her hands on her hips. "Have we done everything we needed to do here, gentlemen?"

For the next hour or so, she, Green Arrow and Batman pored over the crime scene one last time, scrutinizing every minutia and detail that might offer up some shred of a clue. Then it was time for the esteemed leader of the Justice League to read several reports of the findings on the Warworld, issue new mission parameters to get the Warworld moving back to the Sol System, and shoo away curious alien starcruisers. Then boom tube back to the Watchtower to read the news for reactions to the hectic day, break her suspicions to Oliver and send Superman to make a press statement. Batman was formally put in charge of the investigation, as was to be expected, and Arrow informally assigned to keep an eye on him. Then paperwork with Barry. The coffee was cold and her watch read 03:55 when Canary decided that her day had gone on long enough.

* * *

_/The Watchtower_  
_October 15, 07:00 EDT/_

She managed barely three hours sleep when Rocket shook her awake. "Uh, we tried to let you get as much sleep as we could, but you really have to get up."  
One did not become a superhero by not having considerable amounts of heroic willpower and self-dicipline, so Dinah forced her eyes to open and not glare at the younger woman. "What's the emergency now that even Superman can't take care of?" she inquired grumpily.

"Superman announced that the UN general secretary, Bialya's absolute ruler, and several of the Justice League's greatest enemies were all been killed yesterday. Also, we have a gun the size of a moon. Some people shat themselves, and now the UN has called an emergence session. It's in one hour. The UK representative was helpful enough to let the press know they'd want WaWo under UN control."

Of course everyone had to go and get so fucking febrile at the same time. Everyone couldn't just slow down a little, because that would be too much to ask. Canary sighed, then stood out of her mattress, which promptly swept up and into the wall of her office, duvet and everything, leaving Canary standing there in her underwear. And her suit was down on Earth.

"Get me one of the Father Boxes," she ordered Rocket. "And some of the Bat Coffee. I have a feeling I'll be needing both today." Rocket was out of the office by the time Canary had staggered into her chair. She turned on her lap-top, slapped herself awake, put on her earset and dismissed the stray thought regarding the combat drugs in her deskdrawers. That way lay dependancy. Then she got to her mail.

Fuck: The good news was, Doctor Fate's portal got up and safely opened while she was asleep. The other news was that it lead to a dead end, of course. Figuratively and literally, which indicated to Canary that someone out there had a sassy sense of humor to go with the blood on their hands. The email read: "`_The demonic entity opened a portal in Omsk, Omsk Oblast, Russia, in the cul-de-sac pictured in the attached file. It maintained this portal while opening another portal from Omsk to the call from within Warworld. The entity must be powerful to have managed such a feat. Of course, the echo of the other portal has long since disappeared. - Sincerely, Nabu_´" At least he'd learned how to use the internet.

Interesting: Arthur's investigation team had located the Lazarus pit under a seamless cover of the recently formed, underwater crater. It seemed like the ground had just swallowed up the pit on its own, so natural and fluid was the composition of soil covering it. No idea so far by which technique this had been accomplished, but it looked very recent.

And oh yeah, fuck: She electronically greeted Superman, Wonderwoman and Captain Atom good morning across the com: "My office, in ten minutes." Then, across a single-link channel: "Olly, bathroom number 2 on deck 2, in two minutes."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you too, Godfrey. "Yeah, I need a breakfast to go in about eight minutes, I'll take a number eleven, but hold the olives." Fuck olives.

Rocket finally got back in while Canary was half-way down her list of unskimmed reports. "Here you go, anything else?" she asked, handing over the `World's-Best-Chairman´ mug and the Box.

Canary downed half the infernal, life-giving concoction. What was his secret ingredient? Amphetamines? "Why didn't you just boom tube in?" Canary asked the younger woman.

"Uh, because we're in the same building, it isn't that far-" Canary was out of coffee.

"Watch and learn."

Five seconds later Canary was in the shower, naked and washing off the Saharan dust.

"Oh, hello there, that's one way to make an entrance," remarked Oliver, standing outside the grainy glass enclosure.

"Talk to me, Olly. Tell me something good. Please."

"Batman isn't trying to hide anything, I'm sure of that. And you wouldn't believe the toys we're pulling out of WaWo. That's good, right?"

She could. And boy did she like long, hot baths. She'd have one when this crisis was over and done with. "They're calling for blood down there on the ground, Olly. And we have nothing to offer, besides our own tender asses."

"Well, what the worst that can-"

"Don't." Soaped, rinse, scrub furiously. Good thing both earset and Father Box were waterproof. "What else can we try?"

"Interrogation, but that'll give us away. Have you read Atlantis' report on the Lazarus pit?"

"I have. Can't off the top of my head think of anyone capable of that."

"Me neither, but I'll look into it... Um, look, do you think Brain might have been playing us, as, you know, some kind of last hurrah?"

"You're not wrong. It just doesn't seem his style. But I'd rather err on the side of caution. Towel."

One was thrown over the glass door as she turned the water off. "Here."

"Thanks. Keep working your end, and I'll try to keep this boat in one piece."

Boom. Dinah Lance's apartment. Several wardrobes filled with prepared and pressed sets of clothes for any and all occasions. Pants suits, drab business grey over white shirt, sharp but neutral. Tie? Dammit, go with the matching grey. Make-up? No time. And she still didn't really need it. Ha.

Boom. Her hair was still damp and everyone in the street were staring when she threw some bills on the counter of the sandwich bar and politely demanded her breakfast, she ordered it eight minutes ago dammit. Boom. Office. She could get used to this.

She was buttoning her cufflinks when her second and two of the former chairmen entered. "'Morning, Canary," Superman offered.

She cut to the chase. "What do we do with WaWo?"

"We're still continuing to take a full inventory of the Warworld's own main weapons from where we had to leave off last time," Captain Atom started. "And the stock of personal and heavy weapons lying around will put arms manufacturers out of a job here for the next decade or so, I would estimate. I'd still like to make sure none of this falls into the wrong hands."

Wonder Woman took over: "And if we let the governments of Earth up here, it will be a race to see who can steal the most guns and technology."

That was true. Not because every government out there was pure evil, but because with so many different agendas involved, someone was going to cheat, and then you'd simply be stupid not to cheat as well. In fact, now that Canary thought about it, that race was already on. Good thing they had a head start.

"Everyone is going to try to make Justice league members smuggle out information, at least. If not with bribery, then threats." Whoever controlled the Warworld, controlled planet Earth. Or at least, could contend with the League. The full scale of what they had on their hands was just now dawning on Canary, so distracted had she been with the deaths of the Light. Fuck. "I'm calling a code yellow," Canary announced.

The others didn't object, seeming to think the same thing.

"We still need to reassure the UN, and the general populace," Superman advised. "And we can't stay on code yellow indefinitely. Sooner or later we will have to hand over the Warworld, or the governments will try to even the scales."

"Arms races, metahuman programs, the works." Captain Atom didn't look very enthused with the prospect either.

Superman somehow wasn't intimidated by the political work before them. "We at least need to secure anything too dangerous, and then we can arrange an orderly transfer of the Warworld to the UN. We can work something out, all we need is time."

"But when we don't unconditionally hand over the Warworld immediately, that's going to cost us," Wonder Woman said.

"What can we do?" Canary asked.

"Give them something else," the Amazon princess suggested. "Such as the Light killers."

"Proving that we're not suddenly murderers should help things calm down," Superman agreed.

Canary sighed. "We have a lead or two to follow on that, but we're still a long way from catching up with the perpetrators. Is there anything nice and safe on Warworld we can give away as a peace offering? Besides Father Boxes, obviously."

"Yes there is, I was just thinking the same thing," Captain Atom said. "We have several small spacecraft in various hangars around WaWo, interplanetary capacity mostly, but also a number of interstellar cruisers."

"Good, how fast can we sweep one of those?"

"We can have a small one with you at the UN session. The big ones are going to take the Green Lanterns and some days to scan and secure."

"Do it." It probably wouldn't help much, but every little had the possibility of helping. At least nothing directly implicated the League in the Light killings.

Then it hit Canary like a needle in her chest. But she didn't let it show. Instead she finished her round of planning, and when the three superhumans had been dismissed and left the office, Canary leaned back in her seat and stared at nothing for a bit, taking stock: She still had her breakfast in it's little plastic box in front of her, about half an hour before she was expected in New York, command of the most powerful organization in the Sol System, and the prospect of a looming cold war between the League and Earth's governments in front of her. And in Metropolis, Mercy Graves had the pictures to push that prospect even closer.

If she was to do anything about that, now, she would need a mind-reader. Graves couldn't be so cybernetic that she was immune to telepaths, surely. But only the Martians could help here, Canary didn't know if they could be trusted, and Graves had to know all of this already. She'd be prepared by now.

Could the League afford to disclose a video which clearly showed a female, superstrong flier abducting the UN general secretary?

God, how freaking distracted had she been?!

For a few moments, Canary found herself absolutely furious with Batman, Atom, the Wonders and the Martians, for putting her through this exhausting river of shit. But on second thought, the alternative was to let the Light keep control of this terrifying amount of firepower. And what a traitorous second thought that was; had she just condoned these murders?

Dinah stopped herself before that line of thought could get momentum. She needed to focus, eat breakfast, decide whether to make the Hell's Angel recording public. Everyone in the League already knew, and if she tried to keep it secret, it would just be a matter of time before someone leaked it. Probably Oliver...

It was with such considerations going through her head, scarfing down brown rice and salad, that her earpiece chimed softly, signifying that someone was calling her. She reluctantly tapped the device with a single finger. "Youtube," said Malcolm Duncan's voice. "Search 'Codex claims responsibility for Light killings'."

Canary hesitated. Everything was going too fast, and she was only mostly human. This couldn't be real. "Is this for real?" she asked. She knew the answer before she even knew she'd been speaking aloud; _They_ had seen this, all of it, coming.

"I wouldn't have called you directly, at a time like this, if I didn't think so," Duncan confirmed. Canary had already typed in the words and was looking at the first four seemingly identical videos, judging from the thumbnails. Compared to the time of upload, the number of views were astronomical. She clicked the first result.

And there he was, alive, though not exactly well. The miserable state he was in was so alien to this man, it took Canary a few seconds to recognize him. But it was Lex Luthor, shivering with his arms apparently tied behind the chair he sat on, wearing only a ripped set of pajamas, bruises and blood. He was sat in an empty street, in daytime.

She paused the video. "Guardian, have you notified the investigative team?"

"I called them right after you."

x ¤ x

A single floor below, in the observation room, the large middle screen was showing the same video to a cluster of superheroes, Team and Justice League both.

"_This is Codex, with a message to everyone,_" a female voice spoke while Luthor remained still and stony-faced. And Hell's Angel stepped out in front of the camera behind him. She was still wearing her grey-and-blue biker suit, but the gloves and helmet were off.

"Jesus Christ," John Stewart whispered.

She was a kid, maybe 16, probably less. Her waist-length hair was an unnatural crimson red, skin nearly orange and eyes solid emerald green, her metahuman biology entirely obvious.

"_I am December 9,_" the girl said, looking directly into the camera. "_I am the one who abducted Lex Luthor, now 24 hours ago. As everyone investigating this abduction should know by now, I am not working alone. We have eliminated Clarion the Witchboy, Ra's al Ghul, The Brain, Vandal Savage and Queen Bee of Bialya._"

"Not-on-the-internet-not-on-the-inter..." Flash mouthed silently.

"_We did it alone, by our own decision, because we wouldn't allow this group of maniacs to continue their plans for world domination. And we wish to make it clear that we are in no way affiliated with the Justice League._"

"Thanks," mumbled Red Arrow. John couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.

"_In order to prove that I am not a Martian shapeshifter, I will demonstrate my plasma projection abilities,_" December 9 held out her right, ungloved hand, which glowed neon green. "_... on Lex Luthor._"

The video ended.

Martian Manhunter broke the ensuing silence. "We have received a video file on the Justice League official email account."

It was the rest.

Fifteen minutes later, J'onn broke into a heated discussion about the pixels depicting Luthor's fiery execution and the nature of absolute certainty, silencing Red Tornado and Flash. With an open connection to Canary, who was now in the UN building, he said: "Luthor's body has been recovered on an anonymous tip in Punta Arenas, Chile."

* * *

_/The GBS 12'o'clock News, with G. Gordon Godfrey_  
_October 15, 12:02 EDT/_

"Our superhuman `protectors´ won't let UN inspectors into their new toy of mass destruction, but don't worry, folks! Because they don't _know_ the alien that crushed General Secretary Luthor's head. _Scout's honor_."

* * *

_/The Watchtower_  
_October 15, 10:44 EDT/_

"The burns are consistent with plasma weapons, if plasma weapons had palms. The video is high definition and we have a dozen CGI specialists unanimously swearing it's the real deal."

"And we have no idea who December 9 is."

Beast Boy. Beast Boy.

"Speaking of palms, we've found that the burn marks on Luthor's hands are consistent with the honeycomb pattern of a waffle iron."


End file.
